From the top deck came the sound of shouting and arguing. Several snotty children in the lower deck had begun to whine.
‘Does it look like heaven?’ she said finally.
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Not much.’
She sniffed. ‘You’ve got a funny idea of heaven, Frances, if you think it’s carting a disintegrating rust bucket around the world looking after a bunch of kids who never learnt any real manners while they were alive and apparently believe it’s too late to start now. Some death chaperones get to circumnavigate the globe with Patrick Swayze – now that would have been my idea of heaven – but oh no, old Jill from Canvey Island gets lumbered with the under-twelves, which most definitely is not a place of eternal peace, believe you me.’
‘But … why? If this isn’t … why am I still around? I can walk, talk, think …’
Blinking several times, she fixed me with those tired eyes. ‘This all gets covered on the bus. There’s a slideshow. I can sit down. Can’t you just get on and watch it?’
I jutted my chin out. ‘I don’t know anything about you. You’re stranger danger.’
Jill sighed. ‘Please?’
‘I’m not getting on that bus until I know more.’
She closed her eyes and her shoulders slumped. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Fine.’
‘WELL THEN?’ I said.
Jill pushed her glasses up her nose and they slid back down again.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘There are lots of reasons why people don’t properly die. But the most common one is that there’s a toodoo.’
I almost laughed. ‘Pardon?’
‘A toodoo. Hanging over you.’
‘Say it one more time.’
‘You’ve got unfinished business,’ she said firmly.
‘Huh?’
‘There’s something you haven’t done yet that you have to do. Hence, a —’
‘Oh!’ I said. ‘A To Do.’
‘That’s what I said,’ she said.
‘Like what?’
‘Gordon Bennett, Frances, how am I supposed to know? It might not be a big thing. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who forget to turn their kitchen appliances off. Have you left the gas on?’
‘I’m eleven years old.’
‘Oh. In that case, any homework you forgot to hand in?’
I thought for a while. From the top deck of the bus, I saw a boy I recognised from Year Ten. We waved at each other.
‘Maybe?’
The strange woman in front of me sighed. ‘Right, well, you think about that. Because the moment you do it, you can die properly.’
‘What if I can’t think of a To Do? What if there isn’t one? What if I’m an All Done?’
‘Well, another possible reason you’re still around could be that you’re a Difficult Button.’
‘Difficult Button?’
‘The ones that are too stubborn to totally pass over to the other side. Very common in this age group, actually.’
She threw a frustrated glance behind her, barked ‘QUIET!’ at the fierce row blossoming on the top deck over whose turn it was to sit next to the window, and flicked an eye-roll at me.
‘It’s all in the slideshow,’ she said hopefully.
‘Nope.’
Her eyes revealed a great deal of inner suffering. ‘Think of yourself as a button.’
‘Button?’ I said helpfully.
‘Now, think of Life as a shirt, and all the buttonholes as Death.’
‘Er,’ I said.
‘Now, normally, when a button – sorry, human – dies, they pass through the buttonhole easily enough, slip right through, and they come out the other side, and they’re properly dead. Or what we in the trade call “dead dead”. Everything’s gone: consciousness, spirit, soul, the whole shebang. They’re buried, there’s a funeral, everyone has a cry, then there are sandwiches, right? The normal way. The proper way.’
‘Okay.’
‘But if you’re a Difficult Button, what happens is, you don’t quite get through the buttonhole. You’re stuck in the midway point – one foot in death, one foot in life – causing an administrative headache. Anyway, it’s normally the stubborn, hard-headed, challenging types …’ she gave me a loaded look I didn’t appreciate, ‘who don’t die properly. They don’t fully surrender to death. In other words …’
I remembered, for a moment, how I’d told myself that the wave would turn back, that it wouldn’t really break over the harbour wall. Even as the water ripped Mum’s hand out of mine, there’d been a tiny part of me insisting, This isn’t happening, this isn’t—
‘… they resist. At the very point it matters most, Difficult Buttons do not accept death, and their consciousness somehow drags them into this sort of halfway house. An existence, without a proper life attached.’ The woman shook her head. ‘Therefore they’re stuck in the buttonhole. Honestly, why they don’t cover this in schools is beyond me.’
‘So, which one am I? A To Do, or a Difficult Button?’
Jill squinted at her clipboard and then back at me. ‘It’s not clear yet. You might be both. Between you and me, these files they send from the back office aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. I’m sure it will all be sorted out eventually. In the meantime, you need to get on the bus. You’re an unaccompanied minor, which means you’re not permitted to be dead by yourself. You need a guardian, and that is me, and you need a new place of abode, and that is the bus.’
‘I can’t be dead by myself? Says who?’
‘Says the ones in charge.’ Her voice was matter of fact yet also firm. ‘We’ve got a strict code of conduct to abide by, rules and re-ghoulations. You might be dead, Frances, but there’s no need to be reckless.’
I had another disturbing thought. ‘Are you … God then? Or …’ I swallowed, ‘the other one?’
It seemed for a moment that her pupils had grown oddly yellow, like the headlights on the bus. Yet her smile was kind and wise. Or was that just the moonlight rippling over her face?
My thoughts grew electric and wild, as if I’d started flicking through a private diary that I had no business in, and I was afraid. She regarded me a minute, and coughed slightly. Now she just looked like a middle-aged woman in a shapeless suit again, and I was surprised at how much of a relief that was.
‘Calm yourself. I’m Jill. I’m a death guardian. No one important, just an employee. Thirty-three years of service, thank you very much, ever since lung cancer did for me. Cigarettes …’ she fixed me with a longing look, ‘do kill you, as it turns out.’
‘So … where does the bus go?’
‘Everywhere,’ said Jill simply. ‘Well, anywhere there’s a children’s attraction, at any rate. This bus will take you around the world – not in style, admittedly.’ She shot it a rueful look. ‘But it does the job. We make a lot of scheduled stops on the way – lots of chances to get off and stretch your legs, and of course plenty of chances to go on rides completely free of charge. Theme parks, water slides, and of course the Harry Potter studios are very popular—’
‘How long’s the trip?’
‘It can be as little as a couple of months if you meet the obligations of your To Do, or a lot longer if you’re a Difficult Button and take a while to accept death. Spirits can take much longer to decompose than bodies. Whoever came up with the human race really didn’t think this part through and I’m sure this manufacturing snag is a matter of deep personal regret to them, even now. Now, how about getting on, duckie?’
I glanced at the mangled remains of the bus. Peered past it, towards what was left of the village in the moonlight. If my sister wasn’t on the bus, then there was only one other place she could be.
‘No.’
She looked at me wearily. Glanced down at her clipboard. Pushed her glasses back up her nose and fixed me with her eerie stare.
‘Honestly, Frances, I do hope you weren’t like this when you were alive. It’s exhausting.’
‘COME ON,’ SAID Jill. ‘Don’t make this any m
ore difficult than it has to be. I’m not your enemy, I’m your guardian, and it’s my job to make sure you spend your death days in the care of a responsible adult. Now get on the bus.’
‘No,’ I said again.
A few kids cheered.
Jill’s shoulders stiffened. ‘Look, no one under the age of twelve is allowed to wander through the afterlife by themselves. I’m doing this for you, Frances. It’s for your own good.’
‘I can’t just leave and go wandering around the world in some random bus without seeing my family again,’ I said stubbornly. ‘They’re nearby, I just know they are, and I need to wait for them to come back.’
Jill’s face softened slightly, but she shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, dear. If they haven’t made their way back by now, it’s highly likely they’re gone for good. Either way, I can’t leave you unaccompanied in your house – you’ll be all alone.’
‘I don’t care,’ I said loudly. ‘I’m not getting on that bus.’
The cheers on the bus got louder.
A few children started to say, ‘Miss, miss, we don’t want to be on the bus any more either.’
‘Yeah, let us off too!’
Jill contemplated her nicotine-stained fingers longingly. After a moment, she began to root around in her jacket pocket with a shaking hand. She produced a mouldy packet of chewing gum, unwrapped a piece and began to chew it, all the while muttering to herself.
‘You’ve had a child, they said. You’ll love this job, they said. You’ll be a natural. It’s so rewarding caring for children …’
Part of me was sorry for the trouble I was obviously causing her. Jill seemed okay, underneath it all. But I had to stay behind. My family had died because of me. I would wait for them at home. It was the least I could do. Besides, what was it Mum and Dad said, anytime we went anywhere crowded? ‘If we lose each other, stay right where you are, and we’ll come and get you. Don’t go wandering off, okay?’
So that’s what I was going to do. Stay in Cliffstones – or what was left of it. No-brainer.
‘Smell you later,’ I said resolutely, and turned to walk off.
The children clapped and cheered as I tried to circle the back of the bus so I could resume my walk towards the harbour. Yet, just as they’d done before, my legs refused to work. I gave them a frustrated look. I am trying to make a dignified exit here, not shuffle about hopelessly. Any chance you could make an effort?
Jill gave me a sympathetic look. ‘Ah, I see you’ve discovered the Urgent Barrier Enforcement of Juvenile Corpses.’
‘Eh?’ I said through gritted teeth, straining my muscles as hard as I could.
‘Well, it’s a safeguarding measure,’ she said. ‘Put in place to prevent exactly this type of unauthorised wandering by unaccompanied minors. Basically, corpses under the age of twelve aren’t allowed to stray more than a few hundred metres from their home if they’re alone. It got put in place a few years ago, when management finally realised that we couldn’t just have wailing dead youngsters wandering all over the country.’
I did some quick experiments. Irritatingly, Jill was right. My legs did feel as if they were being controlled. When I took a step in the direction of home, they moved easily. Any attempt to go forward, however – like, oooh, I don’t know, towards the harbour to search for my dead family, for example – and they froze completely, as if stuck in cement. I was like one of those supermarket trolleys fitted with an alarm to stop people from taking them further than the car park.
So that was great.
Behind us, the bus of dead children began to fill with impatient sounds; someone was doing a very deliberate sigh. The faces at the windows had changed from expectant to exasperated.
Someone began to sing ‘Why Are We Waiting?’
‘Getting restless,’ muttered Jill. ‘That will be fun to deal with on the M5.’ She did that mouth-pursing thing again. ‘Look, Frances, if you stay behind, you won’t be able to go anywhere, and that will get very boring very quickly, especially when you’re alone. Don’t bring it on yourself – it’s not worth it.’
With a decisive movement, she turned back towards the bus and put one step on the threshold. Its ghostly engine started up again.
I repeated.
She turned from the doorway and regarded me uncertainly.
‘Don’t you want to go to Disney World?’ she said pleadingly. ‘See Donald Duck?’
A few children automatically cheered.
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m too old for that stuff. Anyway, I won’t be alone. My family’s going to come back for me. They’ll be here soon. I know it.’
In the doorway, Jill fell silent. The dirty yellow headlights of the bus smouldered in the dark.
I pulled my trump card. ‘Besides, if you force me on that bus against my will, I’ll spend years asking if we’re nearly there yet. On repeat. Loudly. In your ear. While I sit next to you.’
She flinched. ‘After all, how much harm can you do alone, especially if you can’t wander too far from home?’
‘Exactly,’ I said, sensing my advantage. ‘That Urgent Barrier thingy for Juvenile Corpses – it’s as good as a babysitter. Anyway, it’s not like I’m going to be alone for long – they’ll be back by the end of the day.’
‘Tell you what,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll come back and check on you, just in case.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Next time I find myself in your neck of the woods …’ she glanced at her clipboard, as if checking a timetable, ‘I’ll swing by, see if you’re still around. And if you are – well, I’ll save you a seat, in case you fancy joining us. How about that?’
I was oddly touched by this gesture. ‘Okay. Thanks. You really won’t have to worry though.’
Jill nodded. ‘Goodbye, Frances Ripley,’ she said. She turned to the bus.
I lifted my hand in farewell.
Just before she disappeared into the innards of the wreck one final time, however, she disembarked and walked back towards me.
To my surprise, she pressed a glass bottle into my hand. ‘Drink this when you get home,’ she urged. ‘It’s a sleeping potion for the dead. You’ll wake when anyone walks through the front door. In the meantime, the worst of your loneliness will pass you by.’ Her face was full of pity and a trace of something softer, as if she was hearing an echo from a time long gone.
She turned away and, a few moments later, the driver’s door clanged shut behind her with a laboured groan.
The weirdest bus I’d ever seen resumed its slow, lurching progress up the road, away from Cliffstones.
I waved goodbye to the children in the windows, and they waved back.
Just before the bus disappeared completely from sight, one of its rusting side panels fell on to the road.
A horrible thought occurred to me.
‘Jill!’ I shouted. ‘Jill!’
Her sigh was audible. ‘What now?’
‘Jill, will my corpse decompose? Are bits of me going to drop off too? Am I going to … rot?’
The bald tyres ground through a few painful-sounding rotations before I finally heard her reply.
‘You won’t. But your memories might.’
And then
she was
gone.
BACK AT HOME, my sense of triumph began to ebb. What if Jill was right? What if my family never showed up? What would I do?
Thanks to that corpse barrier, I wasn’t going anywhere. And as I’d discovered earlier, my fingers were useless, so turning the pages of a book or navigating the telly with a remote control would be impossible. I’d waved away all the other dead children that could have been my friends; when it came to companionship, I had literally just missed the bus.
Jill’s parting shot came back to me. What had she meant by ‘your memories might rot’?
Did she mean I might forget my family? I might forget … us?
Dizziness engulfed me. I closed my eyes briefly, feeling as if I was standing at the edge of
something vast and frightening. But a seedling of indignation unfurled in my brain. Of course I won’t forget them. Jill was talking rubbish. After all, what did she know? She’d spent her entire afterlife squished into a husk of a bus with a bunch of squawking kids, that was her problem. If you wanted to talk about brains failing, let’s start with hers!
Besides, how could anything fade away in my brain? I was home. All I had to do was look around. My family were everywhere.
Well, their things were anyway.
I’d ended up in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. The bed was unmade, their chest of drawers was covered in clutter, and there was a heap of unwashed clothes next to their laundry basket, but their room looked like the most beautiful place on Earth. There were only two things missing. I thought of Birdie. Make that three.
Oh, why weren’t they here yet? Were they cross? Is this a punishment?
My thoughts twisted uneasily. I remembered the way Dad had looked at me when I was shouting about the Crab Pot. Squirming, I remembered how I’d run into Mum’s arms to say thanks, and the split second – almost as if she was hesitating – she’d taken before she’d hugged me back. That flash of hurt in Birdie’s face when I wouldn’t braid her hair.
I’d been awful that morning.
I’d been awful that Christmas.
Perhaps I’d always been awful. Had they just decided they were better off without me?
With relief, I remembered weird Jill.
‘Maybe you have a To Do.’
Let’s examine that concept for a moment, I thought. What if there was unfinished business hanging over me? That would mean my family weren’t staying away to upset me. They were merely waiting for me to do my job. So all I had to do was that one thing, and we’d be reunited, right?
But what was that?
Could it … could it be the recycling?
I raced downstairs into the kitchen, found the overflowing box stuffed with bottles and plastic. With desperate, scrabbling fingers, I tried to sort through them, tense with the brittle hope that my family were waiting outside the front door patiently. My hands slid off all the containers. I groaned with frustration. How can we be reunited if I can’t even pick up an empty yoghurt pot? And the house remained empty.
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